Definition of "nave"

nave¹

/neɪv/

noun
plural naves
1. (architecture) The middle or body of a church, extending from the transepts to the principal entrances.
  Quotations
  Then everybody once more knelt, and soon the blessing was pronounced. The choir and the clergy trooped out slowly, […] , down the nave to the western door. […] At a seemingly immense distance the surpliced group stopped to say the last prayer.
  1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter V, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company
2. (architecture) The ground-level middle cavity of a barn.

nave²

/neɪv/

noun
plural naves
1. A hub of a wheel.
  Quotations
  'Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods,In general synod take away her power;Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven […]
  c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act II, scene ii]
2. (obsolete) The navel.
  Quotations
  Till he faced the slave; / Which ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him, / Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps, / And fix'd his head upon our battlements
  c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene i]